rm of a _recovery_. Wagner
belongs only to my diseases.

Not that I wish to appear ungrateful to this disease. If in this essay I
support the proposition that Wagner is _harmful_, I none the less wish to
point out unto whom, in spite of all, he is indispensable--to the
philosopher. Anyone else may perhaps be able to get on without Wagner: but
the philosopher is not free to pass him by. The philosopher must be the
evil conscience of his age,--but to this end he must be possessed of its
best knowledge. And what better guide, or more thoroughly efficient
revealer of the soul, could be found for the labyrinth of the modern
spirit than Wagner? Through Wagner modernity speaks her most intimate
language: it conceals neither its good nor its evil: it has thrown off all
shame. And, conversely, one has almost calculated the whole of the value
of modernity once one is clear concerning what is good and evil in Wagner.
I can perfectly well understand a musician of to-day who says: "I hate
Wagner but I can endure no other music." But I should also understand a
philosopher who said, "Wagner is modernity in concentrated form." There is
no help for it, we must first be Wagnerites.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}

1.

Yesterday--would you believe it?--I heard _Bizet's_ masterpiece for the
twentieth time. Once more I attended with the same gentle reverence; once
again I did not run away. This triumph over my impatience surprises me.
How such a work completes one! Through it one almost becomes a
"masterpiece" oneself--And, as a matter of fact, each time I heard _Carmen_
it seemed to me that I was more of a philosopher, a better philosopher
than at other times: I became so forbearing, so happy, so Indian, so
_settled_.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} To sit for five hours: the first step to holiness!--May I be
allowed to say that Bizet's orchestration is the only one that I can
endure now? That other orchestration which is all the rage at present--the
Wagnerian--is brutal, artificial and "unsophisticated" withal, hence its
appeal to all the three senses of the modern soul at once. How terribly
Wagnerian orchestration affects me! I call it the _Sirocco_. A
disagreeable sweat breaks out all over me. All my fine weather vanishes.

Bizet's music seems to me perfect. It comes forward lightly, gracefully,
stylishly. It is lovable, it does not sweat. "All that is good is easy,
everything divine runs with light feet": this is the first principle of my
aes